Forum:Understanding Borderlands - Manufacturer
Confirmed information *Your favorite manufacturer is based solely on the amount of shots fired with weapons from that specific manufacturer. *Shields, grenade mods and class mods do not affect this in any way. *Most Outrunner-weapons, including those from DLC3, are considered Tediore-weapons. The only exceptions on this rule are the Blast and Mine seat from the Lancer. These two count towards Atlas. *The Mulciber Mk2 is considered Tediore-weapons as well. *No Active Ability counts toward your favorite manufacturer. Call for help So far, I've been able to do these experiments myself pretty well, but with the addition of three new vehicles, I'm gonna have to test eight new weapons. Normally not a problem, but it's hard getting that far in the game without firing a single shot. Therefore, I'm asking for someone who has access so I can check the manufacturers. In short what I'll do: get in the vehicle, fire a single shot, check the manufacturer, fire two shots from a gun I know the manufacturer of, repeat. I'm on PC in the Netherlands. If anyone's interested, contact me on my talk-page. Desertfighter777 07:53, March 1, 2010 (UTC) Comments Hello there. In an attempt to better understand the mechanics behind Borderlands, I wanted to set up a few experiments. The first in this series will be to find out how your favorite manufacturer is determined, and how, if at all, it affects gameplay. Before we just boot the game and run around like mad, let's see if we can come up with some theories about what factor it is based on. A few things I heard or thought of: *Time spent with a manufacturer weapon equipped. *Kills made. *Bullets fired. *Damage done. *Experience gained. *Amount of weapons of that manufacturer picked up. *Amount of weapons bought. *Money spent on a manufacturer. After we found out how it is determined with weapons, we may have an idea of how items can affect it. If you got another possibility, I'd love to hear it. Possible effects of favorite manufacturer: *You'll find more weapons by that manufacturer. *You'll find higher quality weapons of that manufacturer. *Your efficiency with weapons from that manufacturer is increased. *Prices of that manufacturer will decrease when buying, or increase when selling. *Weapon vendors sell more weapons from that manufacturer. Again, if you think of something else, please let me know. A lot of these ideas seem and are far-fetched, but I just didn't want to rule anything out. Comments, suggestions? Desertfighter777 19:04, January 23, 2010 (UTC) :Interesting. I definitely would like to see more people getting into the math and mechanics behind the game. I certainly never gave favorite manufacturer a thought, however. I was more preoccupied with trying to understand things like how elemental damage really worked, and such. (Yes, I know about instantkarma's thread.) Regarding the fav. man., I would assume that it's based on kills made. After all, time holding a weapon would be silly, and so would # picked up (since some people just pick up everything) or shots fired (since some favor weapon types that fire more than others.) That isn't to say those are wrong, but kills made is certainly the most sensible option. I would have thought that it would be nothing more than a fun-fact, since I can't even remember where I've seen this tidbit of information in the game, but if it is more than a statistic, it'd be worth knowing....I have no idea what my fav man is, but I wouldn't be surprised if (as a Siren) it were Maliwan. --Azuarc ::This sounds like a great idea, and I look forward to hearing of your results. I favored a Thanatos and a Liquid Sniper made by S&S as Mordecai on PT 1, but now I never use those or other S&S weapons. However, my "favorite manufacturer" is still set at S&S for whatever reason. So I'm quite curious as to how it's determined, especially if it has an effect on gameplay. I'd never thought of that. And Azuarc, you can see it by going to the page where you can see your proficiencies. The company logo will be behind your character. -- Claptrap Hmm, well as far as factors affecting favorite manufacturers go, I can safely rule out a few: Time spent with a manufacturer equipped weapon. Reason: every character starts out with a Tediore weapon. At the very least, all of my mules (all sirens) have. If that's the case, then they would have Tediore behind their profiles. Instead, it is blank. Experience gained. Reason: some of my mules have leveled up while another character runs the chest just outside New Haven. Some have 10 skill points that haven't been used. Favorite manufacturer is blank. Amount of weapons of that manufacturer picked up. Reason: I separate my mules by manufacturer, intended to collect every level 48 legendary. Each mule holds legendaries from two manufacturers. If this is the case, then my Atlas/Dahl mule would have either Atlas or Dahl as their favorite manufacturer. I believe Tediore is that mule's favorite (I thought I had to get to Zed to get a working mule the first time around). However, my Hyperion/Jakob's mule doesn't have a favorite. As for weapons bought/money spent, I can't say for certain, but I'm doubtful that it would be the case. If it was a major factor, Tediore would be my top manufacturer, as I've puchased dozens of equalizers and Guardians using my regular characters. I don't recall any of my mules purchasing weapons, though, but since their manufacturers are blank, it shouldn't be too hard to test out. Only my Atlas/Dahl mule has ever fired a bullet/done damage/killed anything, and has a manufacturer (I think). I'd say one of these is the greatest factor, though I've never looked too deep into it. I'm making an assumption that it's a single factor, but I could be wrong. Most of my characters favor Maliwan, with the exception of my Soldier, who's Vladof. I will say that I've found quite a few Volcanoes, but still far less than Tediore (which is usually my favorite manufacturer throughout the first playthrough). It's easier associate manufacturers with legendaries (with the exception of the Crux), therefore making it easier to remember how often a manufacturer drops. I have found Equalizers of all kinds (elementals, mashers, etc.) even after my favorite manufacturer changes. In any case, it sounds like a possibility that favorite manufacturer relates to drop rates. It could also be a reverse situation though: favorite manufacturer is the result of drops. I find a Hellfire, start using it, find a better Hellfire, use that all the time, manufacturer changes to Maliwan, find better Hellfires, etc. Anyway, I haven't ever noticed any significant effects of my manufacturer, but at least I hopefully helped in narrowing down the deciding factors. Dantos 22:35, January 23, 2010 (UTC) :Thanks for the info. I've been experimenting today, and this is what I found: :I started a new character (Mordecai). The first weapon he gets is a Jakobs sniper. I stood around and after about a minute I checked my stats. Manufacturer: None, so time spent is not a factor. :Near the start is a weapon chest. I went over there and picked up the Tediore shotgun I found. Manufacturer: None, so weapons picked up doesn't matter either. :While Claptrap was opening the gate, I shot a single bullet with the sniper. Manufacturer: Jakobs. I fired two shots with my shotgun, and manufacturer changed to Tediore. Another two sniper shots changed it back to Jakobs. I then went to kill a bandit with a single shotgun shot, the result was my manufacturer changing back to Tediore. Note that, at this point, I had as many Tediore bullets as Jakobs bullets shot. A single Jakobs shot changed it back to Jakobs again. This convinced me that kills, damage and experience played no part, seeing Jakobs had all these things set to 0 still. :After that, I bought a single Tediore, but my favorite manufacturer stayed Jakobs. :Conclusion: it's most likely that favorite manufacturer is based solely on the amount of shots fired (a shotgun burst counting as a single shot) :I'll try to find out more about the effects later. :Additionally: Is this information worth putting into an article, and if so, what article? Manufacturers? -- Desertfighter777 11:27, January 24, 2010 (UTC) Maybe its the proficiencies you level up with that gun because i was playing with my friend who got his save corrupted and began a new one so he was level one and i was levelling him up quickly ,his manufacturer brand was S&S Munitions, and when starting a new save at level one in that same red chest is the Hyperion BLR swatter and he had that gun equipped while i was levelling him up and in about 20 pistol proficiency levels he was Hyperion later after finding an Atlas Combat Rifle And Doing Several Missions he became Atlas "Branded" very quickly. Sadly I've killed about a billion things with my Hyperion, Jakobs, Atlas and Maliwan guns but I am still Tediore. --User:720M37H3U5 : Tested this out, isn't true. I created a new Brick and went to beat everything I found while wielding a repeater. I haven't fired a single shot, so my manufacturer stayed blank. Even when my pistol proficiency leveled, I did not have a favorite manufacturer. : There's a few other things I found: Shields and Grenade mods don't affect your favorite manufacturer. Have yet to try with class mods, but don't think it'll influence it either. Desertfighter777 13:41, January 24, 2010 (UTC) (Replying to Claptrap way up top, since the reply wouldn't get noticed up there) -- Oh, really. How was I to know that's what the manufacturer in the background was? I thought that was just a part of my character. My siren has *always* had Dahl, and never saw anything different. I assumed that was just what appeared for my character, or at least for Sirens. I noticed when I started a soldier, he had a different make, but I had just assumed the background was tied to class....I guess, based on what's been said here, I found a good Dahl repeater or SMG at some point and never looked back. Odd, since I'm not sure I've used a Dahl recently. -- Azuarc I don't think the "amount spent on manufacturer" doesn't affect it because if it was I would be Hyperion right now --User:720M37H3U5 :I'm not sure I understand this correctly. You're saying the amount spent does affect it? Maybe it does. My favorite manufacturer didn't change when buying a weapon, but that may be because it doesn't affect it as much as bullets fired. What I DO know, is that neither buying a shield, nor buying a grenade mod will affect it. Will check the weapon later today. Desertfighter777 12:25, January 27, 2010 (UTC) Also I think its either kills made, experience earned or time spent with weapon equipped in one of the four weapon slots --User:720M37H3U5 :Since this thread started, I've paid much closer attention. I'm extremely confident its purely based on bullets fired per manufacturer. --Azuarc 07:18, February 15, 2010 (UTC) I can only guess it has to do with bullets fired. My current favorite is S&S, despite not having used one since who knows when. I bet one of my old machine pistols was an S&S, my current one is a Vladof but I used to go for magazine capacity over fire rate, so that's probably it. It won't be Atlas or Maliwan or Jakobs simply because my Cyclops, Volcano, Skullmasher, Defiler, Masher (Jakobs brand) or Unforgiven don't shoot bullets as fast as my S&S used to. Thus I haven't shot as many with them, despite probably getting 100x or more kills with my cyclops or volcano than with my old machine pistol. Yeti Yeti 03:14, February 16, 2010 (UTC) : Just to confirm, my manufacturer recently changed to vladof. It's definitely bullets fired. Yeti Yeti 20:40, March 3, 2010 (UTC)